My Journey With Health And Fitness – Staying Strong

Once again I was up early this morning to get in a Zumba workout before heading out for my walk. I admit, I did not like today’s session and have mentally noted not to do that version again. After a quick rest and rehydrating I started out on my walk. Now you need to picture, it was only 7:30am and I wasn’t 10 minutes into the walk before I was soaked with sweat. Oh yeah, it is going to be a hot day so I think pool time is required for the rest of the day.

I committed to myself on this trip I am not going to lose any gains I have made in my fitness. In order to do this it means I need to make sure that each day I am doing work focusing on strength. However, there was problem that I noted in past trips to the condo, finding weights. Now I did manage on a previous trip to find some 6.5lb weights but quite frankly in a lot of my strength training exercises I have surpassed those lighter weights. So, we started searching for 10lb weights but were not having a lot of luck. Then yesterday while out shopping my husband found some weights for me. The only problem is they cost about double what we would pay at home but I bought them anyways. And so today I did a full upper body strength training session and it felt good.

But it is not just upper body strength I need to keep going, it is also my core. I decided that every day I need to do a series of core strengthening exercises so that I am just as strong when I return home in October. Over the last 3 months I have learned a number of great exercises that I can do and it gives me a good variety to mix it up each day. However, I realized just how far I have come since I started this new journey. Two of the exercises I have been working on are dead bugs (lay on your back with feet and hands in the air then drop a leg and opposite arm to the floor) and leg drops (lay on your back with your feet in the air and drop both feet down to the floor). The trick to these exercises is only dropping your feet as far as you can until your lower back starts lifting off the mat. Much to my surprise when doing dead bugs I can let my heels hit the floor without my lower back coming up at all. Even with leg drops I am getting pretty close to the same. That means my abs have really come a long way.

Despite being in Mexico and giving myself a bit of a break food wise (this week only then I have to stay on track) I am determined I am going to keep working hard. I actually want to return home and feel not that I have lost any strength but rather gained it. If I can do that then my trip here will have been a complete success.